Here I Go Again: A Novel (9 page)

That’s how I feel about Nicole right now.

“No, Nicole.
I’m
allowed to wear jeans on Mondays. You’re not. Now get this heap moving.”

Just like that, I slip into the skin that’s been waiting almost twenty-one years for me to return.

And it feels so very
right.

 * * * 

T
he last twenty-one years were all a dream.

Obviously. That’s the only explanation.

All those memories from college and working as a junior-level publicist and getting dumped over MK’s pan-Asian twist on scallops?

Just your garden-variety nightmare brought on by mixing Jägermeister and Dexatrim Max over the weekend at a football party. Granted, a highly detailed, Ghost-of-Christmas-Future dream, but one nonetheless. It’s like the universe is giving me a heads-up of what’s to come and it’s not too late! Here’s a silver dollar, boy; go buy me a big, frigging goose!

When I see Duke—I mean
Martin
—in the hallway, I don’t greet him as enthusiastically as I might have last week, because I’m still pissed off at him for taking that slutty lawyer to the reunion in my dream future.

“Hey, babe.” He tries to kiss me as I work my locker combination. I always have used 34-24-26, my ideal measurements. (Why did chicks ever want big hips in the olden days?
So gross
.)

I shrug away from his embrace. “Whatevs.”

“What’s the matter, Liss?”

He tries to touch my hair and I wriggle away from him and start to walk to English class, with him trailing behind me. Because I’ve been cold to him all day, he’s been nervous and attentive and I can sense a delicate yet important shift in our balance of power. In my awful dream future, he started to lose interest when we were seniors, so I’d get him jealous by breaking up with him and making out with other guys. But now that I sense I can have authority over him by
just being bitchy
? I can do that! I am so going to flip the script. Dismissively, I tell him, “I’ve got to get to class.”

He’s all puppy-dog eyes. “Can we talk later?”

I wave him off. “In-box me.”

He stops in his tracks and stares at me. “Do what now?”

“Hit me up on Facebook.”

“Huh?”

“Or you can just text.”

His confusion reminds me that none of this technology is on the market in 1991!

Holy crap, I could invent Facebook before that Michael Cera–looking douche and
I’d
be the scrillionaire! Oprah would have no choice but to be my friend! I vow to pay more attention in my computer class.

Anxious not to give away my get-so-freaking-rich-quick scheme, I tell him, “I said ‘I’ll smell you later.’” I punctuate this statement with a toss of my gloriously scented hair. I leave him in a cloud of flowers and Tahitian spice.

As I make my way to Miss Beeson’s class, I notice all the junior girls admiring how I knotted my scarf. Ten bucks says they show up wearing them that way tomorrow. I give them the vaguest hint of a smile and they all start acting like they just won both showcases on
The Price Is Right
.

Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

When I get to English, all the Belles are surrounding my empty desk. The whole crew is here—Nicole, Kimmy, April, Tammy—and they’re each clad in some variety of pastel miniskirt, slouch socks, and oversize blazer. They take in my jeans and knotty scarf, and when Kimmy starts to ask about them, Nicole makes frantic neck-slashing motions. Kimmy slinks into her chair like a scolded puppy.

Class begins and Miss Beeson instructs us to take out our Jane Austen books. Apparently we’re studying
Emma
. Ha! I know
Emma
!
I never read it, of course, choosing to cheat off of know-it-all April during the exam back in the dream past. But Gwyneth Paltrow is a national freaking treasure in the dream future and she starred in
Emma
. She won an Oscar and everything! (Yeah, she ruined
Glee
and also that CeeLo song at the Grammy Awards, but that’s not important.) Plus, there’s no one I love more than Cher Horowitz in the modern-day version called
Clueless
, which I DVR every single time it’s broadcast.

(Note to self: Invent DVR. And do it soon, because
90210
’s
on at the same time as
Cheers
and no one in my house can figure out how to work the timer on the VHS.)

Miss Beeson asks us, “What’s the significance of Mr. Elton framing Harriet’s portrait?” She sweeps the room with her gaze. “Anyone? Can anyone answer?”

No one raises their hand, not even Books Fatty. Should I be calling her Books Fatty, I wonder? According to my diary, her nickname didn’t go mainstream until the week of the homecoming dance. Plus, she seemed awfully touchy about it in my dream, so maybe I’ll just let that one go.

Miss Beeson seems particularly disappointed that no one’s participating. She’s all deflated in her dumpy skirt and nurse’s shoes. (Cher Horowitz would give her a makeover.) (But I don’t actually care enough to try.)

“Really, no one knows? Oh. I thought you guys might like this one. Austen’s sensibilities normally translate so well into modern times.”

Wait . . . isn’t that when Elton put Tai’s photo in his locker, not because she was classically beautiful, but because Cher snapped the shot? My hand flies up into the air.

Miss Beeson is taken aback by my sudden enthusiasm, but calls on me nonetheless. She seems to be bracing herself. Really? Having to brace oneself? Am I that much of a loose cannon? Is this because I don’t want to give her a makeover? Regardless, I say, “The significance is that Emma misinterprets this as a symbol of Elton’s, I mean,
Mr. Elton’s
affection for Harriet, when really he treasures the portrait because it was Emma’s work. It’s one of the main conflicts in the movie, er, book.”

Miss Beeson looks like she’s going to bust her oh-so-polyester buttons. Okay, fine, if I were to give her a makeover—which I won’t—we’d start with natural fibers and a keratin treatment. “Very good, Lissy! Very, very good!”

I feel a flush of pleasure that registers somewhere between a strawberry margarita and half a hit of Ecstasy. Wow. Who’d have guessed that positive attention’s even more of a rush than negative?

“Who can explain what happens when Emma realizes she’s in love with Mr. Knightley?”

I raise my hand again; I’m about to
own
this class. I rattle off a dozen more answers (I have a PhD in Paul Rudd, natch), and when the period ends, everyone’s looking at me like I’m a rocket scientist/supermodel and it feels glorious.

That’s right, bitches. Beauty
and
brains.

Lissy Ryder just made being smart cool.

Believe it.

Wait until I invent Facebook.

Then we’ll see who
truly
reigns over the twentieth reunion.

CHAPTER SIX

But I Can’t Trace Time

I kick serious academic ass in all my classes. I zip through questions on the sinking of the Titanic in World History (thank you, James Cameron), and I completely blow away my speech teacher in a practice debate. (Sixteen dream-future years of spinning bullshit for a living will do that.) What really gives everyone pause is when I detail the process for copper plating in my physics lab.

Of equal importance is that I’m able to teach the other cheerleaders an amazing hip-hop routine that I call the SuperLiss, which looks suspiciously like that from Soulja Boy, whose baggy pants I’ll be suing right off in about nineteen years.

Watch me crank it, watch me roll! SuperLiss, now whoa!

I may not have been the best teenager
before
last week’s weirdness, but now I’ve got this new life on lock. I’m going to capitalize on all that I gleaned from my dream future.

First I plan to take this crazy psychic knowledge and use it to get into a better college than the University of Central Illinois.
Playboy
magazine ranked UCI first in the nation for partying, but academically? They fall somewhere between Hamburger University and barber college. The UCI mascot is a
sloth
, for God’s sake. Sloth pride? Um, no. The worst part is that in the dream past I was accepted to UCI only because Daddy called in a favor from his law school buddy who’s on the board. So shameful.

“Whatcha doin’, honey bunny?” Mamma asks, hovering in my doorway.

What I’m doing is writing down every bit of information I can remember about the dream future, because I plan to find a way to make it pay off. One word . . . Sportbook! I can’t wait until I’m eighteen and old enough to go to Vegas!

But . . . even though I’m extra-close with my mom, it’s probably best not to share this information for fear of being sent to a shrink. That’s always her home-run swing whenever I don’t do exactly what she wants—she threatens to enroll me in therapy. Well, that or fat camp.

For now I tell her, “Studying for my Italian test tomorrow.” In the dream future, I spend a whole summer bumming around Italy after graduating from UCI and I come back semifluent. My teacher was so impressed today when I could say, “
Il mio fidanzato non ha bisogno di sapere
” (“My boyfriend doesn’t need to know”) with a flawless accent!

She saunters into the room, cocktail in hand, and then putters around, straightening pictures and adjusting trophies before she comes to perch on my bed. She sips her drink and intently watches me. “Well, finish up, ’cause the
Dynasty
reunion is on. Don’tcha want to find out what happened to Alexis and Dex?”

Actually, I already know. Ooh, ooh! Write that down, too!

I say, “I’ll be ready in a few.”

Mamma doesn’t get up. She takes a long pull on her drink. “I jus’ worry about you, darlin’. Study too hard and you’re gonna get you some wrinkles.”

I jot,
Item #37—Invent Botox
.

“I’ll be fine,” I reply.

She sets her glass on my nightstand and idly fingers the fringe on my bedspread. “Y’all in any classes with June Childs’s daughter? Name’s Amy? Smart as a whip, but the poor thang’s been beat in the face with an ugly stick. Her nose?” She leans in all conspiratorially. “It’s shaped like a P-E-N-I-S. Her mamma had to drop out of Jazzercise because she’s savin’ up for plastic surgery.”

At this news, my stomach knots just a little bit. I give her an almost imperceptible nod.

“What about this girl named Brooks? Brooks Paddy? You know her? She’s about y’all’s age.”

There goes my stomach again. I say nothing, keeping my eyes on the page.

“Well, her mamma is in the Junior League with me. Good Lord, that child is fat as the day is long. When the family flew to Washington, D.C., this summer they had to ask the stewardess for one o’ them special seat belts. You know, for the O-B-E-S-E. Awful, just awful.”

I put down my pen. “Which part, Mamma? The fat part or the being embarrassed on the flight part?”

My mother bristles. “Young lady, I do not care for your tone. All’s I’m doin’ is tryin’ to help you, because you do
not
want to be lahk these girls.” When she gets rattled, the South really comes out. Once when Daddy tried to cancel our country club membership because he said the dues were too high, she went from zero to Atlanta burning in point five seconds. (The membership stayed.)

I try to maintain my temper, because trust me, no one wins a fight with my mother; it’s best not to even try. Yet I can’t stop myself from saying, “What’s your point, Mamma? That I don’t want to be like them because they’re on the honor roll?”

What I don’t say is that these girls have committed the cardinal sin of not being pretty enough for Virginia “Ginny” Cavanaugh Jefferson Beaulieu Ryder, top debutante at the Savannah Christmas Cotillion, circa 1971.

From the time I was old enough to hold my own hairbrush, my mother has been grooming me on the importance of grooming. She’s always said it doesn’t matter what you’re like on the inside if folks can’t get past your outside.

When I was in grade school, no matter how late I might have been running, I wasn’t allowed to leave for the day until my ribbons were tied, my shoes polished, and my cheeks pinked. I remember saying, “Why do I need rouge? I’m six!” and she’d simply reply, “Trust me, darlin’. This is an investment in your future.” She even hooked me up with a cheerleading coach in seventh grade to make sure that by the time high school rolled around, there was no way I wouldn’t make the squad.

At no point did she ask me if I wanted any of this.

For the most part, I did and I do, but it’s nice to be consulted, you know?

She waves her hands in front of her face like she’s trying to dry her long, expertly manicured talons. “Oh, honey! Nobody gives a fig what your grades were in high school! What everyone ’members is what you drove and who you dated and if you won you some crowns! And once you get to college, it’s all ’bout being a Kappa or a Tri-Delt, ’cause that’s how you land the best husband. The right man’ll set you up for life!”

I roll my eyes—like I haven’t heard a million times how she was the belle of every ball and how she dated the lieutenant governor’s son. Instead of engaging, I concentrate on my list. What am I missing? I do a quick, seated Pilates stretch to help my blood flow. Hey . . . Pilates! I pick up my pen and write,
Item #38—Invent Pilates.

I chew on the tip of my pen while I concentrate.

Item #39—Invent GPS.

What else might make me rich, rich, rich in the future?

Item #40—Invent LOLCats.

“You’re getting all squinchy again right there.” She taps me above the bridge of my nose with the lip of her glass.

I duck away from her. “That’s because I’m thinking.”

She brushes my hair out of my face. “Well, maybe you should think less, darlin’. After all, your job as a young lady is to be attractive, not smart. Trust me, boys do not line up for the clever girls. No one ever says, ‘Oh, my—check out the big IQ on that one!’”

At some point during our conversation my dad materialized in the doorway and now he’s hopping mad. “Really, Ginny?” he sputters. “It’s one thing to insist on rewarding piss-poor academic performance with
a brand-new sports car
, but to hear you actually
encourage
our daughter not to try? To say it’s more important to be attractive than intelligent? What kind of message are you sending?”